Would mounting folder as shared from inside of virtual box work? If so this can help.
One thing though: there is a few ways to do this. (mount have many options, ro, rw, etc, ) The following example is for a simple one-time share to enable things to go from host to virt with no cut paste. Also, mount is ran as just mount with no options besides the needed “-t”. If you need this as read only, use vboxmanage command on cli instead.
inside vm:
Devices → Set “Bidirectional” for Drag & Drop and Shared Clipboard. This is the menu at the very top of the virtual machine window (File-Machine-View-Input-Devices-Help, choose Devices)
on host:
you can do this on cli too but here is gui info: settings → shared folders → machine folders
click plus + sign and fill in the fields
choose or create dir on host (mkdir ) and note its path
choose a name for the soon mounted directory. I use sharedstuff for example
the “folder name” in host vbox gui must be the path from before (sharedstuff for this example)
do not worry about “mount point” field on host gui, unnecessary for this example
back inside vm:
open a terminal and type: sudo mount -t vboxsf sharedstuff /path/to-dir-you/want-to-share The path in the second part is meaning the dir you made on the host; this is the dir you will share with the machine. our one was called sharedstuff and it stays at /path/to-dir-you/want-to-share. thats where that comes from. sharedstuff is like nick-name for /path/to-dir-you/want-to-share directory you see?
Some versions of virtual box from inside virtual machine there may be mount picture of a disk right there on the desktop or sometimes you have to go to file manager and navigate to the now shared folder. Or open a terminal and sudo mount just like that maybe pipe to grep if you have too many things mounted.
Do your work with the folder.
When all finished with your work flow you can X out the options in virtualbox gui on your host. Just clear the fields you filled in before.
From within your vm, open a terminal and type sudo umount /path/to/shared/folder
Done. You can continue working in virt or shutdown. Unmounting the folder does not affect anything else.
Do not forget to revisit “Devices” inside the vm and remove “Bidirectional” and put it to “Disabled.”
A note
You need to have sudo privilege so choose a login where you have that. Mount is a common command which means it makes a space to mount / map block devices, folders, usbs, all kind of hard drives and others. Because it can do these things and more you require elevated privilege. . The “-t” is an option that means: the type of filesystem or systems that can be mounted. Ours is a “vboxsf” shared filesystem. It gets mounted as rw by default (read and write).
Hi, how are things going with the clipboard? For several months now, it has simply been impossible to use a virtual machine normally without a clipboard. I know that the main problem is with the developers from Oracle, but still in addition to the solution that @tylereaston made are there any changes that will allow you to use the virtual machine normally without custom made solutions?
Colleagues, I suggest everyone write in the github virtualbox thread and confirm that many people need a solution to this problem.
So that they quickly fix the shared clipboard for wayland.
Registering a github account is easy. I used browser vpn free and temporary mail.
Let’s write everything down and then they will quickly be indignant about solving this problem. Otherwise it’s a disaster. I don’t know how people work without a shared clipboard, the whole essence of whonix loses its meaning.
I did reply to a message from this virtualbox contributor
galitsyn-oracle
If 20 people write, they will quickly understand that this needs to be addressed first.
As the title says, guest additions aren’t working on the new release of whonix. I find it a very essential feature, specially the shared clipboard with host. Is there a way to make it work even though it’s not officially supported? I think many people won’t upgrade to the newer version because of this.
Guest additions themselves should be working (for instance dynamic resolution changing, although it has to be enabled in sysmaint mode as popups should tell you). The broken clipboard is a known problem that there is no good workaround for yet other than using folder sharing. See the posts above.
Right now, Virtualbox-Whonix is the officially supported version of Whonix, other than Qubes-Whonix.
KVM-Whonix is not officially supported. It is only community-supported.
If this issue does not get fixed, will the developers move to make KVM-Whonix officially supported and Virtualbox-Whonix community-supported? Or drop Virtualbox support entirely?
Nominally yes, in practice quite some effort is put into keeping Whonix-KVM working well.
Clipboard sharing is broken under KVM too. See:
It will likely be a lot harder to fix for KVM than for VirtualBox because upstream isn’t (or at least wasn’t last I looked) putting development effort into spice-vdagent Wayland compatibility. VirtualBox on the other hand seems to be working on getting Wayland clipboard sharing to work right, and it may already be fixed (though we haven’t tested this yet):
Hi everyone, did you see what the Oracle developer posted?
They’ve patched VirtualBox
galitsyn-oracle
3 weeks ago
Contributor
Hello,
We just released VirtualBox 7.2.8. This issue should be fixed in this version. You can download it from Downloads – Oracle VirtualBox. Thank you for reporting the issue.
I updated, but it’s clear that the clipboard isn’t working. I think I need to replace GuestAdd with the latest version, and then everything will work—I just can’t figure out how to load it (the new version) correctly yet.
Has anyone tried this yet? Let me know, or do we need to wait for a new version of Whonix?
Honestly thats just absolute absurd that for over six months since release of this version issue is still here.
I dont want to turn on common file folder, since its significantly increases attack surface.
Is there any instructions how to get back to x11?Im not really into desktop linux and also sysmaint/regular sessions is a bit confusing to me in greetd
Why did developets switched to wayland in first place?Why didnt they switch back, after realizing the most basic feature doesnt work properly in a most-used scenario?
Since theres already files related to x11 sessions inside whonix 18, maybe you could provide script to make it properly load, instead of wayland?
It pretty hard to modify any config, since its gets reverted after reboot due whonix self-defence(?).
Maybe make a x11+xfce distro accessible again?
Shared folder increasing attack-surface and really doesnt work nearly as convinient as just clipboard
I was sitting on whonix 17 (which is EOL already) before today and now seeing that no one seems to care about fact that one of the most useful feature doesnt work at all in most popular scenario is absolutely insane.
The only reason why it works in qubes is just because it still using x11 there, as far as i can tell.
Maybe just switch back to x11 on all branches then as temporary solution?
v18 its literally unusable at this point and whonix 17 is EoL and deleted from the site.
That exact mindset is the reason why majority of opensource tools is unusable dogshit.(and im not talking about whonix in particular, just to be clear)
What code we are suppose to fix?virtualbox ones?
Or make another build of whonix without wayland, that developers wont support?